ABUNDANT ACREAGE AVAILABLE: A Simple Film Of Great Depth

I like the many, many movies that take place in New York City as much as the next person, but it always makes a nice change to come across an American film set far from the Big Apple. Kelly Reichardt‘s Certain Women recently transported us to Montana, charting the experiences of three women as they lived their lives amongst the sprawling, wide-open landscapes. Angus MacLachlan‘s Abundant Acreage Available only follows one woman (and four men), and is set in North Carolina, but it shares with Reichardt‘s film a real sense of life in a remote rural setting.

Certain Women was based on short stories. Abundant Acreage Available was not, but has the feel of one. Like the best short stories, MacLachlan‘s film takes an ostensibly simple plot and fills it with layers of meaning. And like the best short stories, you will be thinking about Abundant Acreage Available for a long time after it has finished.

Abundant Acreage Available

Siblings and farmers Tracy (Amy Ryan), and Jesse (Terry Kinney) have just lost their father. They bury his ashes in their tobacco field. The next day they find a tent at the bottom of their land, occupied by three brothers, Hans (Max Gail), Tom (Francis Guinan), and Charles (Steve Coulter).

Furious at the trespassers, Tracy insists that they leave immediately, but after some conversation, it seems that the tobacco farm used to belong to the father of these uninvited guests, before it was sold to Tracy and Jesse’s father after a drunken mistake. Jesse insists that the brothers should have their ancestral farm returned to them, Tracy doesn’t want to lose her home. An intense debate follows, the result of which will change the life of all five of them.

Formal Simplicity, And The Brilliance Of Amy Ryan

The first thing you notice about Abundant Acreage Available is its simplicity. The film’s sole location is the tobacco farm. The cast only numbers five. There is little music; far more common on the score is the song of starlings, and the whistling of the wind. The colours are plain, and so is the camerawork. This is not a flashy film. Dialogue heavy as it is, it could very easily be adapted for the stage, if the vast presence of the land was not so important to the narrative.

If the film were to be described as having one secret weapon, that weapon would be Amy Ryan. Probably known to most as Michael Scott’s soulmate Holly Flax on The Office, but also having memorable appearances in Gone Baby Gone (for which she was Oscar-nominated), and Win Win, it’s rare that Ryan gets the chance to take the lead in a film. Her performance in Abundant Acreage Available shows what a shame that is.

She is phenomenal here. Tracy is told, not asked, that she will have to leave her home of decades, barely a week after the death of her father. Obviously, she is shocked and furious. And then she starts second guessing her fury. After all, the brothers lost their home due to their dad’s shady business dealings. What right does she have to stay there? Ryan plays this inner conflict with a delicate power. Her acting is minutely detailed; you can see each separate thought she has, as it makes its way across her face. The overall result is a terrific, commanding, probably career-best performance.

The four male members of the cast also excel, and MacLachlan gives them each at least one notable scene in the spotlight. It is Ryan that stands out however, and hopefully this will result in her landing more leading roles.

Thematic Depth

The unvarnished visuals of Abundant Acreage Available not only leave room for the performers to shine, but for MacLachlan‘s thematically rich screenplay to take centre stage.

Tracy, Jesse, Hans, Tom and Charles are weighed down by the actions of their parents; actions that they had no say in. They have varying opinions on how to put those past wrongs right, or even if they should be righted, and don’t arrive at a consensus by the end of the film. But in their arguing, the disparate personalities of these characters are revealed, and you get a genuine sense of who these people are.

The topic of religion gets an admirably nuanced treatment. Through Tracy’s conversation with Charles, we learn that her now devout brother used to be an alcoholic, and that that alcoholism inadvertently led to the death of his son. Jesse’s faith genuinely did get his life back on track, and has kept it there in the years since. However religion is not considered a cure-all. Tracy and Charles want no part of it, and this is not treated as a great shame, just a fact of life. What works for some, doesn’t work for others.

Beneath it all, encroaching from either side, is the spectre of death; it flies above the farm alongside the starlings. The film starts with a burial, and ends with a burial. Two of the people we see traversing the land are buried beneath it by the time the end credits roll. It is made very clear that the land they are arguing over will outlast them all. Hans asks of Tracy, as they are out in the fields, “How many bones have been put in this ground do you think?” It’s an inescapable truth that we will all end up there one day.

All this talk of death does not make Abundant Acreage Available a depressing film. It deals with difficult subjects, subjects we all try to put out of our minds, with a head-on bluntness. But there’s a fair amount of humour to help you digest these serious themes. The burials that bookend the film both contain the most wonderful instances of cathartic laughter. Death seems an unlikely thing to laugh about, but it’s going to happen to all of us, so why should it be so shrouded in solemnity? The film recognises the emotional complexities around death, and leaves you not depressed, but nourished; similar to how you feel after having a heart to heart with a good friend. It’s good to talk about these things, and gratifying when a film choses to.

Conclusion

Abundant Acreage Available is a small film. Minus credits, it runs to seventy-five minutes; there’s a cast of five, a single location, and little in the way of music, or fancy visuals.

Within this simple package though, lies multitudes. Five beautifully nuanced performances, led by Amy Ryan at her very best. A meditation on death, family, land, and duty. How we balance making up for the sins of the father against the practicalities of the present. It may be a small film, but it’s a deep and rich one, worthy of your full attention.

Have you seen Abundant Acreage Available? What did you think? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

Abundant Acreage Available was released at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 20, 2017. For information on the release dates, see here.